306 THIRD FEEIOD. A.D. 311-59).
to tlic ascetic and literary solitude of Bethleliem, where lie served the church by his peu far better than he would have done as the successor of Damasus.
Augustine (f 430), the greatest theological authority of the Latin church, at first referred the words, ''''On this roch I wUl huild my church,^'' to the person of Peter, but afterward expressly retracted this interpretation, and considered the jpetta to be Christ, on the ground of a distinction between jye^ra (eVi ravry rfj irerpa) and PetrxLS {crv el Uerpo^) ; a distinction which Jerome also makes, though with the intimation that it is not properly applicable to the Hebrew and Syriac Cephas.'' "I have somewhere said of St. Peter" — thus Augustine corrects himself in his Retractations at the close of his life* — " that the church is built upon him as tlie rock ; a thouglit which is sung by many in the verses of St, Ambrose :
' Hoc ipsa petra ecclesiae Canente, culpam diluit.' ' (The Rock of the church himself In the cock-crowing atones his guilt.)
But I know that I have since frequently said, that the word of the Lord, 'Thou art Petrus., and on this petra I will build my church,' must be understood of him, whom Peter confessed as Son of the living God ; and Peter, so named after this rock, represents tlie person of the church, which is founded on this rock and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaveiu For it was not said to him : ' Thou art a rock ' {petra)., but, '■Thou art Peter'' {Petru8)\ and the rock was Christ, through confession of whom Simon received the name of Peter. Yet the I'eader may decide which of the two interpretations is the more probable." In the same strain he says, in another place : "Peter, in virtue of the primacy of his apostolate, stands, by a figurative generalization, for the chui-ch. . . , "Wlieii it
■ Ilier. Com. in Ep. ad Galat. ii. 11, 12 (cd. Vallars. tom. vii. col. 409): " Non quod aliud significat Petrxts^ aliud Cephas, sed quo quam uos Latine et Graece peiram vocomus, hanc Ilebrsei et Syri, propter lingua) inter se viciniam, Ctphan, auncupent.''
' Retract. 1. 5. c. 21.
• In the Ambrosian Morning Hymn : ".^Etcme rei im conditor."
§ 61. OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. 307
was faid to him, 'I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' &c., he represented the whole church, which in this world is assailed by various temptatioijs, as if by floods and storms, yet does not fall, because it is founded upon a rock, from which Peter received his name. For the rock is not so named from Peter, but Peter from the rock [non enim a Petro petra^ sed Petrus a jpetrci)^ even as Christ is not so called after the Christian, but the Christian after Christ. For the reason wliy the Lord says, ' On this rock I will build my vihurch,' is that Peter had said : ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, which thou hast confessed, says he, I will build my church. For Christ was the rock (^etra enim erat Chrisius), upon which also Peter himself was built ; for other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesu& Christ. Thus the church, which is built upon Christ, has received from him, in the person of Peter, the keys of heaven ; that is, the power of binding and loosing sins." ' This Augustiuian interpretation of the jpetra has since been revived by some Protestant theologians in the cause of anti- Romanism.' Augustine, it is true, unquestionably understood by the church the visible Catholic church, descended from the apostles, especially from Peter, through the succession of bishops ; and according to the usage of his time he called the Roman church by eminence the sedes apostolica.^ But on the
' Tract, in Evang. Joannis, ] 24, § 5. The original is quoted among others by Dr. Gieseler, i. 2, p. 210 (4th ed.), hut with a few unessential omissions.
* Especially by Calov in the Lutheran church, and quite recently by Dr. Wordsworth in the Church of England (Commentary on Matt. xvi. 18). But Dr. Alford decidedly protests against it, with most of the modern commentators.
' De utilit. credendi, § 35, he traces the development of the church " ab apostolica sede per successiones apostolorum ; " and Epist. 43, he incidentally speaks of the "Romana ecclesia, in qua semper apostolicae cathedrte viguit principatus." Greenwood, i. 296 sq., thus resolves the apparent contradiction in Augustine: "In common with the age in which he lived, he (St. Augustine) was himself possessed with the idea of a visible representative unity, and considered that unity as equally the subject of divine precept and institution with the church-spiritual itself The ipiritual unity might therefore stand upon iha faith of Peter, while the outward and visible oneness was inherent in his person ; so that while the church derived hei esoteric and spiritual character from the faith which Peter h;id confessed, she received her external or executive powere from Peter through ' the succession of